


Five Times Rory Williams Was Not a Werewolf

by pocketmouse



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: 5 Things, F/M, Gen, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-29
Updated: 2011-10-29
Packaged: 2017-10-25 01:21:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/270116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketmouse/pseuds/pocketmouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five Times Rory Williams Was Not a Werewolf</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Rory Williams Was Not a Werewolf

**Author's Note:**

> Ahahahahaha Rory must HATE me right now. Um, happy Halloween?

**1.**

"Owwwww!" He doesn't mean to scream, but it _hurts_.

Amelia smacks him, but then takes several quick steps backwards. "You stupid — you were supposed to get away!" She looks like she's going to burst into tears. She looks _frightened_ , a look he's never seen on her face before.

Amelia's mum must have heard the commotion, because she comes rushing outside, taking the situation in with a glance. She kneels down next to Rory, wrapping one arm around him to gather him up in a hug while examining the injured digit.

"Amelia, what did I tell you about biting people?" she says sternly.

"Don't break the skin," Amelia replies dutifully, and Rory recognizes the words from defensive conversations at school. He'd thought it was one of Amelia's bad jokes.

"That's right," her mum responds. She squeezes Rory’s wrist quickly, once. "And I don't think you did. Let's go inside and we'll put some ice on it."

So they go into the kitchen, where Rory gets a cookie and an ice cube wrapped in a hand towel, and Amelia has a porkchop.

"You wouldn't like it anyway," she says, though she sounds sullen, and Rory remembers what she told him about what it was like in Scotland. "Titus wouldn't like you any more. I think he thinks I'm going to eat him." She shrugs.

Rory frowns. "Do you want to eat my dog?"

"No!"

"All right." But all the same he wonders what it would be like. If it meant that he'd finally be able to keep up with his best friend.

  


 **2.**

"No."

"Oh, come on!" Amy says. "We didn’t know the mountain was going to _move_. Do you really want to be trapped here any longer than we have to?"

Rory looks at the swamp unhappily. The light is the same dim grey it’s been for the last day and a half, and the weak plant life that surrounds them, when it isn’t trying to tangle them up and suck them into the mucky water that laps at the narrow path, is a similar palate of dull browns and sick greens. The whole place feels unhealthy; even the air has a faint smell of decay to it. "No," he says again, though this time in agreement.

The Doctor isn’t paying attention to the conversation. "We can always go back to the crash site. There might be something I can salvage. The mountain’s not moving again, I can’t do anything about that, but there’s probably some way to get us back to the TARDIS that doesn’t involve a three-day hike." He doesn’t sound very confident, though.

"Three days is a little optimistic, given our current pace," Amy points out. "Who knows how long it’ll take us to get around this bloody swamp, if it doesn’t eat us first." Her boots are still damp from the first near-tumble she’d taken, and the Doctor has shucked his coat after a mis-step had arrested his forward progress a little more suddenly than he’d anticipated. Rory’s the only one who hasn’t taken a tumble yet, and the reason for that is the same reason that Amy’s eyeing him now.

"It’s humiliating," he says.

"No it’s not," Amy shakes her head. "Embarrassing, maybe, but only because you don’t like people seeing how much fun you have." She spreads her arms. "Besides, who are we going to tell?"

He looks at the Doctor, who still isn’t paying attention. He’s trying to scan the swamp with his sonic again, but that’s proven to be fruitless several times now. It doesn’t work on any plant life, not just wood. The last time they’d been able to get a good scan, the TARDIS was nearly a hundred miles away. And there’s no one else on the planet to give them a lift. The Doctor looks into the light on the sonic screwdriver and frowns, then puts it away again.

"It’s not actually any safer for me. In fact, it’ll do more damage if I get hurt like that."

"I’m not suggesting you go through it, you dolt. But you’ll make much better time going around than we would. So we’ll cut through the middle, and if you’re that far ahead of us, you can just keep going for the TARDIS and bring it back here."

"Oh." That’s — actually quite reasonable. "Wait, how am I going to do that?"

"Well, the homing button should lock the TARDIS on my signal," the Doctor replies. He looks at Amy. "But Rory’s not that much faster than us. If he cuts around the outside of this mess, there’s no way he’d reach the TARDIS unless we were severely stuck." He gives the brackish water a mistrustful look.

Rory sighs. "Make sure you remind him this isn’t a useful skill. Or even a skill. And this is the only time I think it’s even been considered a time-saver."

Amy grins at him, a look of triumph on her face, and leans in to kiss his cheek. "Thank you."

He gives her a look, then turns around, unbuttoning his shirt.

Him stripping puts the Doctor’s attention back on him. "What are you — Rory, I don’t know what you’ve read about streamlining, but it doesn’t work like that, put your clothes back on. It’s going to get colder once the sun goes down."

Rory steps behind a scraggly tree to strip off his pants, and hands the last of his clothes to Amy. She’s got them in a neat pile, easy to carry. "Hopefully we’ll be out of the swamp before nightfall."

"No, that’s not very likely. We’ve still got a couple hours, but we’d need a good six at least to get out of here and find somewhere to bed down for the night. Rory, did you get hit in the head by anything when that wall came down? Anybody inject you with anything? Hypnosis? Amy, make your fiancé put his trousers back on."

"Probably best I don’t," Amy says. Her voice sounds leering, but she’s not actually watching him. What he’s about to do isn’t very pretty, and he can’t hide the fact that it hurts, either. The Doctor asks Amy something else, but Rory tunes them out and concentrates on changing.

When he opens his eyes again, the landscape looks pretty much the same. A little duller, but not much. But the shadows and edges are easier to make out in the dim light. He shuffles his feet and flicks his tail, giving himself a good shake to try and settle into his skin. It feels good. Amy’s right, like always.

She’s grinning up at him now — her hair’s a muddy brown and her scarf a similar color. It always feels a little strange that she’s the only thing that looks different when he changes. It feels like she changes with him. He leans closer and she reaches up to pat his nose.

The Doctor’s staring as well. "Rory, you’re a horse." He looks like he’s going to pull out his sonic, but stops and just looks at Rory. After a moment the Doctor gives up and closes his mouth, instead reaching out to put a hand on Rory’s shoulder. The Doctor’s actually speechless, and Rory can’t help but laugh.

"More useful than a wolf by a long shot," Amy says. "And less questions back home."

The Doctor thinks about this, then nods. Then something occurs to him. "Rory, you got bit by a _horse_?"

"Petting zoo."

  


 **3.**

Delivered to Rome, the Pandorica is set up for display in the agora, while they fight over which god has favored them with this 'gift.' Rory lets them. He'll stay with Amy no matter where she goes.

During the day the agora is hectic, filled with farmers and craftsmen selling their wares, and people on the way to a temple or to seek audience with the Senate. It's a casual kind of busy, partly familiar and partly terrifying, though now less so since he finally knows why he's here. Who he is.

He’d told the Doctor that he hadn’t been sure if he’d dreamed that other life, but that was an exaggeration. It made it seem like he remembered more than he did — in reality it had all been hazy suggestion and half-remembered faces, snatches of terror and hope mixed up together, but too persistent to be dismissed. Amy. The wolf. The feeling of power wrapped inside the TARDIS. All he’d wanted was for someone to explain it to him. And then there was Amy, and everything made sense again.

Except the wolf. He looks up at the sky. The moon hangs low and full in the air, no clouds in the sky to obscure it as it shines down on him. Rory can't remember the last time he'd looked at the moon without fear.

However advanced his makers were, they hadn't been able to detect whatever made him turn into a wolf-thing when the full moon was out. Or maybe they'd detected it and cured it. But either way, it wasn't a part of him any more: he hadn't even realized what that monthly anxiety meant until he'd found Amy and was sure that that whole other life wasn't some insane dream.

It's probably for the best, when he really thinks about it. His wolf side wasn't an out-of-control beast, like in the movies, but that didn't mean he liked transforming or that it didn't hurt. Changing forms as a plastic man couldn't be any easier; and as a wolf he was more driven by instinct, he found it harder to control himself. Who knows what a wolf with a gun arm might do. A man with a gun arm has proved bad enough. He touches his chest absently and resolutely doesn’t wonder what would have happened if he hadn’t been erased from existence.

At least as a wolf there isn't anyone controlling his body. It's just him. Amy had tried giving him orders, sometimes, like he was a dog, but he'd only obeyed them once, the first time, so she'd know he was still smart, still HIM.

He really doesn't feel himself any more.

  


 **4.**

"This is what you get for telling me I was imagining things," Rory says, looking at the Doctor.

The Doctor hunkers further down, putting his head on his forepaws in an obvious sulk. Amy’s tongue sticks out in a laugh.

"You’re no better," Rory says. "How is it that I’m the only one who’s learned from the last time this happened?" The Doctor looks up at him. "Yeah, yeah, because I’m the boring one. Well right now I’m also the only one with opposable thumbs." Now they both look chagrined. Which serves them right.

He sits back on his heels, trying to think. Amy pads over to curl up next to him, a warm auburn form against his side. He looks at the Doctor, who is still sitting slumped over. His coat is a mottled brown that looks sort of like the tweed of his jacket. Briefly Rory wonders what happened to their clothes.

"Right, so. Do you know what caused this?" The Doctor thumps his tail once, and Rory decides to take that as a yes. "Do you know how to fix it?" The Doctor thumps his tail again, but doesn’t look at Rory. It takes Rory a minute to guess what that might mean. "I’m not going to like it, am I?"

No reply.

"Great." He looks at the Doctor. The man seems utterly relaxed, even stuck in the body of a wolf. Normally he has all that frenetic energy, even when they’re doing something as simple as fixing the TARDIS. But now he looks like he hasn’t a care in the world, just soaking up the sun in the field. And Amy is almost asleep next to him. Obviously neither of them are bothered. "So, do we need to do anything to fix it, or do we just wait, or what?" That’s probably a little too complex for the Doctor to answer. "Is there anything _I_ can do?"

The Doctor sits up at that, then trots away. Rory watches him head towards the treeline, wondering if he should follow, but Amy rolls over a little, stretching to expose her stomach, and puts her head on his thigh. He pets her absently.

The Doctor returns, dropping a stick at Rory’s feet. He grins at him expectantly, and that look hasn’t changed at all either, pure childish excitement.

"You’re serious?" The Doctor’s tongue lolls out and he does a little dance in place. Rory wishes he had a camera, then remembers the Doctor doesn’t know the concept of shame. "I can’t do belly rubs _and_ throw a stick," he says, and Amy has had bagsies on his attention for years.

The Doctor picks up the stick and drops it in his lap. "You are both complete bollocks at being werewolves, I hope you know that." But he throws the stick anyway.

  


 **5.**

"He's not answering his phone." Amy glares at the phone for a moment, then slaps it shut and shoves it back in her pocket. She kneels down next to Rory carefully. "How're you doing?"

Rory takes a deep breath, shuddery. He thinks the adrenaline is starting to wear off. "I'm okay," he says, when he realizes he still hasn't answered Amy's question. The tourniquet is holding, the bandage isn't getting any redder — though he's not sure if that's possible. He lost a fair amount of blood. He's got his whole hoodie wrapped around his forearm, sleeves tying it up tight, but the navy material is darker than it should be. He wonders how many stitches he'll need. He wonders when he stopped carrying a first aid kit.

He must've zoned out for a bit, because he's surprised by Amy's fingers against his neck, checking his pulse. "The emergency responders are on their way, but they'll be another half hour at the earliest." She sits, finally, though she still looks tense, and the massive tree branch she picked up doesn't leave her hand. "Half an hour," she repeats. "Whose idea was it to go camping in the middle of the French countryside?"

"Sorry."

She gives him a look. "Well, I was enjoying myself until the sodding wolf attack."

Rory nods, then he laughs. Amy looks concerned, so he hurries to explain. "We're in Lozère."

"Yeeeeeeah." Amy still doesn't get it.

"This area was full of wolves back in the seventeenth century. Massive, man-eating things. Werewolves, some people thought."

"Rory, you were not bit by a werewolf."

"Hey, knowing our luck —"

"I know it's not werewolves, because if it was the Doctor would actually be here," Amy replies.

"Tell him there are anyway, maybe that'll get him here faster than the SAMU."

She laughs, but doesn't take her phone back out. "Do you want to try walking to meet them, or are you still worried about —" she gestures to their bloodied clothing, implying blood pressure, shock, recovery position. Or maybe just dizziness.

"I could manage it, but we'd probably only gain ten minutes, and it'd mess with the GPS coordinates you gave them." Amy nods in acknowledgment, and leans up against Rory.

It's quiet for a minute, then she says, "Do you think it had rabies, attacking us like that?"

"Didn't look rabid. No, I think it was guarding its nest — den, whatever — since it let us go when we ran away."

"Right, no berry-picking from now on."

"Of course, it could also have been sent as a trained assassin."

Amy gives him a look before she realizes he's talking about werewolves again. "But werewolf bites don't kill you, they just turn you into a werewolf too."

"Maybe just to damage my credibility, then. Or my ability to go out at night."

"You mean you’d work _less_? Why didn’t you get bit by a werewolf earlier?"

He’d nudge her for that, but she’s sitting on his injured side, and he’s not moving his arm. "What would you do?" he asks, tone turning serious. "If I really was bitten by a werewolf thing."

"Rough sex," Amy says right away.

"What?" It takes him a minute to figure out what she means, and he shakes his head. "I’m not biting you too."

"And why not? You don't get to run off and be a werewolf without me. And I'm not getting a license for a rifle and building an underground saferoom. I know what kind of movies you watch, and no. If you're a slavering monster werewolf, and not a Teen Wolf werewolf, then I'll call up the Doctor, and we'd find a way to fix it. After we find you again because you tried to run off for my own safety." She says it with a fair amount of irony and a raised eyebrow. She knows him too well.

"Look, if I turn into a werewolf, you shouldn't do it too, is all I'm saying. That's not fair."

"To who? You or me? What if I turned into a werewolf? What would you do?"

'Panic' probably isn't an acceptable answer. "Call the Doctor."

"He's not answering," she reminds him.

"Call River."

"Actually stuck in jail."

"OK, panic."

"You'd be doing that anyway. Come on."

"All right, fine, fine."

"Thank you." She kisses his cheek. "Now, we need to think of a really cool story to go with that wicked scar you're going to have."

"What, being attacked by a wolf isn't cool enough?"

"Consider our lives. Being attacked by a wolf is downright mundane. Even werewolf might be a little too domestic."

Rory laughs, and far away he can hear an engine. "Space werewolf?" he says.

"Martian werewolf trying to infiltrate the planet."

"The only thing that could save me is a sexy ginger."

"Lucky for you I was there."

"Yeah. Lucky me."


End file.
